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Sam Hinkie's foolhardy decision to hold out for more instead of dumping Evan Turner and Spencer Hawes back in December might cost the Sixers the worst record in the league this season, but a loss tonight will secure a spot in the record books. If Houston shows up even a little bit, Philadelphia will tie the Cavs with their 26th consecutive loss. That's one for the resumé!

17 and counting. Tanking in professional sports has always been about the difficult balancing act between wanting to be bad enough to land a top draft pick while giving the appearance to your fans (and possibly the governing body of your league) that you're trying to win. It must be a revelation for Sam Hinkie and Josh Harris to embrace the first while disregarding the second. Two games separate the Sixers from the best odds at the #1 spot.

Whenever a team challenges the 9-73 worst record ever in an NBA season there's always a pang of embarrassment. The Sixers set that mark before I was born, in a 17-team league led by the 68-win Celtics. They set that mark in a time when trying to lose never entered the conversation, in a time when wins were a more valuable commodity than second round draft picks and accumulated lottery balls. That team was better than this team, in fact, every team that's ever set foot on an NBA floor was better than the team Sam Hinkie is currently suiting up every night. Whether you think what he's done is good, bad or inconsequential, the Sixers have moved the bar.

After spending the first two months of his coaching career as a laughing stock (10-21), Jason Kidd has seemingly righted the ship in New Jersey Brooklyn. The odd thing is he's done it without his core group on the floor together. In fact, his superstar was only in the starting lineup for two games in their impressive 10-1 run back from futility. Currently, Deron is back and the team is riding a three-game losing streak.

Phoenix and Philadelphia both wanted to shove a horrible season of basketball down their fans' throats this year in the hope they'd be able to land a top pick in this summer's stacked draft. Phoenix blew their chances early and will probably have to fight and claw to hold on to the 7 or 8 seed in the West. The Sixers, well, they're still in the process of throwing away a golden opportunity.

A loss tonight helps the Sixers in two ways. The first is the obvious need to get as high up in the lottery as possible. The second is the Knicks futility is keeping the Pelicans from dropping further. Melo is having a good season, and it may not even be at the expense of team success this year. The rest of the Knicks are bad. Pitiful, really.

The 19-20 Washington Wizards would be the number five seed in the East if the season ended today. Sad as that may be, the Wizards might just be headed in the right direction. The Sixers need to get them up to .500 in today's matinee.

Your Charlotte Bobcats are currently the number eight seed in the Eastern Conference. A commentary on the horrid conference? An example of a bad team paying too much money to join the ranks of the mediocre? Or maybe a team on the rise? My money isn't on the last one. Sixers hosting the Bobcats tonight.

Sacramento has cornered the market. The NBA is littered with players who look good, but actually kill teams. The two names at the top of that list? DeMarcus Cousins and Rudy Gay. Sacramento drafted one (then gave him a max contract), then went out and traded for the other. It's only a matter of time until Cousins throws a punch at Gay for hogging the ball, there are only so many possessions to waste, after all.

Now that players like Carmelo Anthony and Andre Iguodala have moved on, Ty Lawson is finally get a chance to show he can lead a team to mediocrity all on his own. The Nuggets have dropped seven straight, four straight at home. Tonight, the Sixers will see if they can toss a few more ping pong balls out the window and send a message to Brian Shaw saying maybe being an assistant coach for life isn't such a bad thing.

Michael Carter-Williams will probably return from his knee infection tonight which means there's a chance he goes nuts and steals a win for the Sixers. I'd say it's probably a good chance. After thrashing the Sixers 130-94 on Monday, Brooklyn returned to form with a home loss to the mighty bullets.

Good news: The Nets have leapfrogged the Sixers in the standings with a 3-1 spurt. Bad news: MCW might be back for one of these games and it's very hard for any team to take two in a row in a home-and-home, no matter how hard the Sixers try to lose.

Sam Hinkie did his roster destruction over the summer to set things up for the 2014 draft. Masai Ujiri appears to be doing his on the fly...maybe. Getting rid of Rudy Gay made the Raptors better. Forget about the players he got back, losing Gay was addition by subtraction, and if he stops there it wasn't a tanking move, but rumors have Kyle Lowry as the next man out of Toronto, which would signify an organizational tank job.

Recently we've seen the Sixers defense make a horrid offensive team look like world beaters. Tonight, they Los Angeles Clippers, with the #4 offense in the league, will pad their stats and run the Sixers right off the floor.

If MCW's knee injury keeps him out again, the Sixers probably don't have a shot tonight against the Denver Nuggets. In this season filled with needed losses for the bigger picture, icing MCW is probably a good move, but I'd still love to see him abuse Ty Lawson and Nate Robinson. The matchup would've been unfair. Oh well.